Overcoming negative mental health impacts of COVID-19
As we are passing through quite an uncertain period in our lives, it is quite normal to experience bouts of stress, anxiety, depression and other advanced psychological stressors. This could vary from individual to individual. With unpleasant levels of stigmatization, those who contract the virus will be in denial and would not want to come out in public even after they are fully recovered.
According to Dr. Mahesh Rajasuriya, Consultant psychiatrist at the Colombo National Hospital, negative mental health impacts could be broadly divided into three categories. These include;
■ Direct impact due to pandemic
■ Negative outcomes in preventive and control measures
■ NON-COVID related psychological issues
Anxiety
“Initially there was fear of the unknown and there was a fear of contracting the virus. When it started in Wuhan we took more precautions than what we are doing now. Now that it’s in the neighborhood we have taken precautions lightly. Knowing is realization. We know that COVID isn’t as fatal as dengue because the death rate due to dengue is much higher. However we were taking unnecessary precautions. Now we know at least one person who contracted the virus. It’s good that we are not unnecessarily afraid but the problem is that we are unnecessarily unafraid.
“We were then talking about flattening the curve and questioning whether the elderly would die due to COVID etc. Undue fear could lead to anxiety. If you’re old you will have death anxiety. And if you’re stranded in another country or if your children are in another country, you will experience bouts of anxiety,” said Dr. Mahesh Rajasuriya.
Stigma
People having COVID have faced severe stigma. “It has come to a point where a NON-COVID person do not even want to be anywhere near a COVID positive person. This is due to over-commercialized exposure given by the media,” said Dr. Rajasuriya.
Impact due to control measures
“We are just learning to control COVID. We had a time when there were no cases being reported. Sri Lanka is trying hard to have a low incidence rate and continue civilian activities. There could be practical issues when executive control measures. One might wonder why parents of children writing A/LS cannot be home quarantined. Some children are writing exams from quarantine centres but it is neither home, nor is it the best place to study. But there can’t be any compromises in this situation. Perhaps the government could consider giving some extra marks to children sitting for A/LS in quarantine centres. Another issue is where you will get quarantined. Wealthy people will be in a nice hotel while others will go to government centres. Hasn’t this always been the case?” he asked.
Other issues include PCR testing which is not an easy thing to do.
Attitudinal change
What the government should be doing is to firstly bring about an attitudinal change. “They should do a bit of research, pay attention to complaints and decide how to address the issues. The government can implement methods of home quarantining, divide risk levels and so on. Another problem we see is that asymptomatic persons are described as ‘patients’ but actually they are not. They are just virus carriers and therefore should be isolated,” said Dr. Rajasuriya.
Economic impacts have also taken a heavy toll on mental health. Those depending on daily wages may be unemployed and in turn they cannot make money and put food on the table. “Therefore the government needs a holistic approach in addressing mental health related issues emerging due to COVID.”
Help is available
“We have introduced a free Mental Health hotline so that they can call and talk about their issues rather than taking a risk and coming to the hospital. These are transitional times. Therefore while the government should take note of negative mental health impacts, people also should understand that the system isn’t perfect. They need to adapt but if there are grave injustices happening, we are here to listen to them,” said Dr. Rajasuriya.
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